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Fiio X3 Replacement Suggestion

travellersol

travellersol

Active Member
Dear all forummers:

3 years ago i bought a used Fiio X3 (1st gen), it was my first DAP and I was blown away by the SQ! Sadly, last week I lost it during travel. So I am in the hunt for a replacement, and I need some recommendations before making a new purchase. Before that let me give you more info about my use cases so that you can give me more focused suggestions.

My age: 51

My main diet composed of :
Jazz (vocal, instrumental) (50% of the time)
Pop (80's Brit pop) (20%)
Mainstream Rock (like Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac) (10%)
Classical (20%)
Heavy Metal - no no no

My headphone: Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro
* I have auditioned and compared Custom One Pro with Audio-Technica ATH-M50x using the Fiio X3, found that M50x sounded too bright and too forward and I got tired soon, but Custom One Pro is just nice and non fatiguing to my ears for prolonged listening. I have also tried the Final Audio Design Pandora Hope just for fun, and-it blew me out of the solar system! I have never heard anything like it before and wished to take it home right away, but the price of USD700 was too much to justify!

Besides using the headphones, lately I have started to use the Fiio X3 as my main source to feed my home hifi system consist of a vintage Marantz 1060 integrated amplifier and a pair of also vintage Rotel speakers with 12 inch bass drivers. The result is fantastic - X3 feeds music signals directly into the amp from the lineout port, without going through any extra DAC or preamp, the sound is marvelous.

With this background, I need your ideas to help me get another DAP to replace my much beloved X3, below are some of my main requirements:

1. Price: Ideally below USD200.
I have read that some better players from A&K and Onkyo do sound like heaven but again I can't justify their high cost. Unless the player that you are suggesting sounds so much better than a $200 player but the price is just a bit higher, then I don't mind giving it a try.

2. Brand: Fiio is preferred. Other brands I'm open to suggestion, as I have no experience with other brands, there might be some gems out there that I might have missed.

3. Sound Quality: Good vocal, wide sound stage.

4. DAC: best if the internal DAC is as good as the X3, so that I don't need to spend on an extra DAC.

Any suggestion is welcome and is much appreciated. Thank you.
 
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If you used a Fiio 3 for three years and were happy with it I see a few choices.

Buy a new Fiio 3 2nd generation off the bay for less than $200
Buy a used one for even less, but why bother.

And, although your budget is $200, the reviews of the newest Fiio 5? are very positive and suggest a much better sounding unit than the 3, but it's $399.

But, in your case, it could save you from buying a new pair of headphones, and possibly make your current ones really sing at a new level!
 
After some research, I am open to extend the price range to usd300, and below are some models that sounds interesting:

FiiO X3ii
FiiO X5ii
Shanling M2
Cayin N5

My main demands are still these:
+Good vocal (esp. Jazz)
+Wide sound stage
+Good as a source for home hi-fi

Whoever still reading this can help me out to review the models mentioned (or other ones that I'm not aware of?)
 
Another vote for FiiO X5II. It has the largest storage capacity. I have 2 x 128gb cards in mine. I believe it could handle 2 x 256gb but it would be very slow accessing a song from that size of a library. Great sound for the price, might as well buy it new (or used)- it is relatively cheap for what you are getting. Made in China. Be sure to download the latest firmware update as it is a little slow when accessing a track from a large digital library. Also you may notice you have to occassionally "update media library" because it will start playing songs on the screen without any sound coming out. Easily remedied, but somewhat of a pain. Sounds CRISP with its digital coaxial audio out feature if you have a good amp, don't even bother with "line out" if you have a digital coax input on your amp as the DAC on the FiiO (while great) can be bypassed in this way and sent straight to your amp for processing = even better sound. This is assuming the DAC on your amp is better than the DAC on the FiiO, which is already hard to beat in most cases. In any case either way you use it, sounds a lot better than any iPod I've heard. Their follow-up model X7 is not as well suited for large, HQ digital libraries (imo) and is taking a step backwards by being limited to only one MicroSD card slot. Purchase the X5II off amazon.
 
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I found that even run of the mill 128 kbps files just sound incredible when listened through coax out. You get to hear much better sound (than what you're used to on a DAP) if your amp's DAC is up to the challenge. Well worth it. It is a very detailed, clean and crisp sound that is wide open.
 
I had the X3i, the X3ii, and the X5ii. The DAC on the X5ii is quite good, and equally impressive for portable use is the powerful amp. I have access to an iBasso DX80, which has a superior DAC, but as the amp is designed to only power average IEMSs, I prefer the X5ii.

The Astell & Kern AK Jr. is also now below $300, which often was given preferable sound quality ratings to the Fiio offerings.

Another option would be to get something like the Audioquest Dragonfly Red and use your phone as the storage source.
 
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